Dear Juliette: Letters of May Sarton to Juliette Huxley - Softcover

Sarton, May

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393335496 ISBN 13: 9780393335491

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999

Synopsis

In these extraordinary letters, we see May Sarton in all her complexities and are privy to her tangled relationship with Juliette Huxley, whom May considered her muse and the greatest love of her life.

May Sarton's love for Juliette Huxley, ignited that first moment she saw her in 1936, transcended sixty years of friendship, passion, rejection, silence, and reconciliation. The letters chart their meeting, May's affair with Juliette's husband Julian (brother of Aldous Huxley) before the war, her intense involvement with Juliette after the war, and the rich, ardent friendship that endured until Juliette's death. While May's intimate relationship with Julian was not a secret, May's more powerful romance with Juliette was. May's fiery passion was a seductive yet sometimes destructive force. Her feelings for and demands on Juliette were often overwhelming to them both. In fact, Juliette refused all contact with May for nearly twenty-five years. Their reconciliation, after Julian's death, wasn't so much a rekindling as it was a testament to the profound affinity between them. Theirs was a relationship rife with complications and misunderstandings but the deep love and compassion they shared for one another prevailed. Included in this book are Sarton's original drafts of an introduction to these letters.

About this title

Review

The poet May Sarton's reputation took a nosedive after her death in 1995 and the unflattering biography (by Margot Peters) that followed. The publication of her tender, revealing letters has managed to arrest this decline. Susan Sherman, who edited Sarton's Selected Letters, 1916-1954, now offers insight into Sarton's most profound and affecting romance, with Juliette Huxley, the Swiss-born wife of the English scientist Sir Julian Huxley. May and Juliette met in 1936, while May was involved with Julian. Their love affair culminated in one passionate week in Paris in 1948, after which--hurt by May's angry threat that she would tell Julian--Juliette broke off the relationship. After Julian Huxley's death in 1976, they began to write one another again and kept in contact until Juliette's death. As May Sarton wrote in old age, "I have had many lovers, many friends since I was 25 and met Juliette Huxley, but none has so nourished the poet and the lover as she did, the incomparable one." The book includes drafts of introductions by May Sarton and excerpts from a few of Juliette Huxley's responses to Sarton. --Regina Marler

About the Author

May Sarton (1912-1995) was an acclaimed poet, novelist, and memoirist.

Susan Sherman lived with May Sarton during her weekends, academic breaks, and summers, and assisted with Sarton's writing and correspondence during her life. She currently lives in New York City.

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0393335496
• ISBN 13: 9780393335491
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 418
• Editor: Sherman Susan